Of Fainting and Cars
by the-east-hunter
Summary: Julie wonders why Texas faints when he sees cars, Jacob tells her the story of a young boy


**so this entire oneshot is just like a compilation of my own headcanons on Texas, I feel like if we got a second season it would have expanded on his character a bit, but since we didn't I just kind of came up with some ideas of my own**

oOo

"Heh, wow, I still can't believe we managed to pull that off." Julie said, a bright smile lighting up her face.

"I can't believe you kids get away with half the stuff you do." Jacob replied. The two of them were currently watching from a safe distance as they boys did their best to teach some of the civilians of Motorcity how to drive the cars they had found. Well, most the boys anyway. Chuck was giving the security a few more once over's in order to ensure that Kane didn't plan on retaliating right away; Dutch and Mike were both faring pretty well, but Texas was constantly going between giving rudimentary instruction, stroking one of the cars, and doing his best not to faint.

"Y'know, I still don't get it. I mean, the cars are amazing, and I love cars a lot, but don't you think Texas is being a bit… melodramatic?" She asked, gesturing towards said man. Jacob seemed to ponder her words for a minutes before finally responding.

"I guess it's just more of a Motorcity thing." Jacob replied.

"I don't know. I know I haven't always lived down here, but I've spent most of my life here." Chuck butted in, dismissing his screens. "I love cars, you guys know that, but even I can at least look at them without passing out on the floor."

"It's not quite the same." Jacob argued. "You may have spent a good deal of time down here, but you've spent most of it around people like me. Older people, and few of them. Living in mechanic areas. Texas, well, he's a different story…"

oOo

Motorcity, at it's very birth, had been more or less a giant orphanage. Families had been forced apart, and even though an entire family might still live in the old Detriot, amid the chaos they would get separated and it was unlikely that they would ever see each other again, especially in those first years when everyone was too busy picking up pieces. So yes, kids without parents became a sad but common occurrence.

Therefore, a young boy living in the shattered remains of a rusty and broken car – missing most of its' pieces and hardly even recognizable – naturally took a while to get noticed.

Eventually, a nearby community found him. He was half starved and thin as a rail, his clothes covered in dirt and his face not much better. For all his malnourishment it seemed like he had been managing to get around for a while by the time he was discovered, his arms surprising strong with tightly bound muscles and most of the parents were horrified to learn that he had been managing to sustain himself my catching some of the mutant rats and eats them raw.

By the time anyone had gotten to him he had fallen ill, and that point it could've been from food poisoning or chemicals in the air or even the common cold. The point was he was barely alive. They couldn't get much out of him, mostly because he didn't know much, even about himself. He didn't even know his own name, and some people wondered exactly how long he had been on his own – even before the separation of Deluxe and Motorcity orphan _had_ existed. All they had was the license plate on the car – Texas.

And so, Texas he became.

The boy – Texas – ended up in small settlement for orphans, and was lumped in with all the others. With that many mouths to feed, one could say that the amount of food he got was little more than the amount he had managed to scrounge up on his own. Back in the beginning of Motorcity a 'meal' meant enough food for a single mouthful.

The community had probably about thirty kids in it, of all sorts. Most of the kids had been separated from their parents in some of the raids, but there were a few like him who had oddball names because it was all that was known about them. It was the kind of place that would either make or break the young spirit in a kid.

Texas spent most of his days exploring around. He, naturally, became obsessed with the one thing that he knew about himself – he came from a car. Cars essentially became his entire life – well, that and the action film he had seen when one of the gang over their area at the time had hosted a movie night with their equipment (he was captured by the idea of a kung fu and its ability to make one a hero). Texas would run down to the strips of road popular for races and watch the cars go by with wide eyes.

Other days he would go around the heaps of forgotten items, practicing kung fu and searching for treasures. He eventually became known for a car he made for himself. Well… car is quite a stretch. It was a rusty old wagon he had found, his steering wheel was just a hub cap he had found lying around, and all the wheels on it were either makeshift or barely holding together. For a touch of ambience he had added pool noodles on the sides. Nothing seemed to make him happier than toting it up to the top of a hill and riding it down until he either fell out, rammed into something, or came to a stop in some other manner.

Knowledge was never top priority, it was just too hard to try and teach that many kids who already were so far behind in any form of schooling, so some things they learned later, through each other, much later than any child would have to learn them. Like reading and writing. Among the orphans the few that could read and write did their best to spread it to the others. Texas was never the best student at these, he never seemed to enjoy having to sit still for so long, but he certainly tried, and eventually, around when he was 8 or 9, he learned how to.

The only thing he ever read was books about cars. And magazines about cars. And ads about cars. Basically just things about cars. He learned how they worked, different pros and cons to types of cars, everything, from tires to engines right down to kinds of steering wheels.

There were some people, though, among the orphans, who picked on him, as bullies are a thing that will always exist, even after an apocalypse or two. They would call him out on his slower mental abilities, find ways to taunt him, and there were words that they told him, jeered at him, that never left him, even when he grew up. They were the kind of wounds that never healed, were only hidden.

He did grow up, and he grew into a strong man with a big heart. He became somewhat of a protector of sorts, and while he traveled a lot he tended to roam back to his original town, and when their protector gang vanished for an unexplained reason, he stayed there more, and refused to let any other gangs take over, defending his town of sorts. He made himself a weapon, tying together two guns with a piece of rope to make nunchucks/guns… gunchucks. He boasted that with them he had a close range attack, a mid range attack, and long range attack.

He, of course, continued his love for cars, and still would go down to the race ways and watch the beasts tear through the wind, longing in his eyes. His wagon he gave to the younger kids in the community, the ones that would screech in delight whenever he came over and climb all over him. Sometimes he'd pile into the old thing with them, or carry it to the top of the hill for them, since it was easier for him to do it then for the small arms to try and push it up.

His little world was an okay one, one he always felt lucky to have.

Then one day, his peace shattered.

Kanebots had come to a nearby town, and he immediately had picked up his gunchucks and left. Those people there, they would need his help, not mention if no one stopped the kanebots they would probably head this way regardless and Texas would have to deal with them then. It didn't take long to find them, they left so much destruction in their wake – it was worse than anything Texas had ever seen, even the gang fights were usually carefully planned to minimize damage to the turf.

Smoke rose from once carefully laid settlements, and his hands tightly gripped the gunchucks until his knuckles turned white. What he found surprised him. Something was already fighting the bots… a vibrant green car, and his face lit up at the beauty of it. It shot lasers and was wildly speeding around them. He jumped into the fray, taking the chance he had to fight alongside such a beautiful vehicle. He let his body take over, punching and kicking in a flurry of motion that ultimately ended in the destruction of the rectangular boxes, the green watching his back as he watched its. It was over far too soon, leaving him with his chest heavily rising and falling, gulping down air, bruised with ragged, bloody hands. But he wore a smile on his face.

The green car pulled up. He looked at it with a delighted face, and the door opened as a figure stepped out. The man, the driver, was long legged and tall, significantly taller than Texas, but much more lean. He wore a nice smile, inviting, the kind that made you relax under it.

"Those were some pretty impressive moves you had back there." The man commented, and Texas _beamed._

"Yeah, I know, I've been working on it for a while now." The man gave out a small, good hearted laugh.

"I could tell, that's for sure." A hand rose up, halfway between them. A gesture. "My name's Mike."

"I'm Texas." He replied enthusiastically, and thrust his hand forward for a shake, and was surprised when Mike didn't actually shake it, but his face instead changed to a concerned one and he carefully held up Texas' hand, examining it.

"Oh, I guess I didn't think about what punching that synthetic metal would do to your hands… does it hurt?" He asked, and Texas just shrugged. He didn't see what the big deal was, sure they stung, but the incredibly AWESOME experience made it all worth it in the end. And right now, he was _so close_ to a car, closer than ever before, he could hear its engine and smell the gas and take in every detail of it, so the knuckles meant nothing to him.

"Texas isn't some cry baby who whines over a couple of bruises."

"These are way more than 'some bruises'" Mike insisted, letting that hand fall to Texas' side before picking up the other one to give it a once over. "Where are you from, do you have someone who can take care of this?" Texas didn't really know what his town was called, besides 'his town' or maybe 'home', he had never needed to talk to someone about it, had never had someone be interested enough in him to.

"I know someone who can handle it." He lied effortlessly. He could probably handle it himself, and if not, well… well he could handle it himself. He eventually managed to assure Mike enough that he left, and Texas was sad to see him go. He seemed like a nice man, nicer than some of the people Texas had met, and his car was magnificent, but deep down, if he was honest with himself, he knew that could never be him. He would never be the one to sit in a driver's seat… he was never dealt those kinds of cards in life, given that kind of luck, he only ever got good enough ones to get by. He went back to home, and bandaged his hands, cleaned the wounds, and iced some of the bruises that he thought could have been because of something broken or fractured, but there was no way to know for sure.

The kanebots came back to that place. He fought them again, and the green car was there again. The same for the next time. And the time after that. Before he knew it, he was keeping his ears open for any rumor of kanebots attacks so that he could be there preemptively, just so that he could fight side by side with the green car and kind boy named Mike. Mike turned out to have a friend who rode shotgun, helping him with stats and info and control the giant lasers on his car, and Texas wasn't envious at all because he knew more than to want actually ride shotgun, much less drive one, because deluding himself was useless.

It was much to his surprise the day that Mike came to his town. He didn't know how he had managed to find his home, but he didn't even have time to think about that, because he was even more shocked to see the car he was riding. It wasn't his usual car, the green beauty that Mike fondly regarded as Mutt, but a sturdy strong car that stayed low to the ground, six gorgeous tires holding it up. It was sleek and black with red highlights, and he was pretty sure that its' base was a sports car. Mike came out, and he was mildly surprised to see that Chuck was nowhere in sight. Texas slowly sat down, his head feeling light. Mike spotted him instantly.

"Hey buddy, nice place you've got here." Mike looked around and nodded to himself, drinking in the small settlement.

"Yeah, um, how'd you even get here?" Texas replied, standing back up. Mike gave a grin.

"I have my sources." He shifted slightly, and something jingled in his hand. "I came here for a very important reason." Texas nodded.

"Of course, you need Texas to take care of an urgent mission having to do with deal with dangerous kanebots, ninja battles, and protecting innocent citizens since you ladies can't handle it." Texas said assuredly. Mike probably just had a ton of cars or something, or maybe it was Chuck's and he was borrowing it for some reason. Updates on Mutt, remodeling, it could be anything.

Mike held up his hand. Something was hanging from it. Something small and shiny.

"I was thinking you could take her for a spin." Texas sat back down.

"Wait, what, Texas is very confused right now."

"You heard me, I want you to take a little ride in her." Mike gave bright smile, but Texas could only stare at the red keys.

"You do know I haven't driven a car before, despite my awesomeness."

"No time to starts like the present." Mike shuffled Texas over to the beautiful car, placing the keys in his hand. He sat him down in the driver's seat, told him where the gas was, and the gear shift, but Texas already knew everything about cars, he may not have much knowledge on anything, but cars – that he knew. Mike closed the door with the parting words of 'her name's Stronghorn, I think you'll like her.'

And then Texas was alone in the driver's seat. He felt the steering wheel, ran his hand around the leather on the seats. Stronghorn… a beautiful name for a beautiful car. He lightly tapped the breaks, and started the car, going into drive. Then, he lifted his foot, and touched the accelerator.

It was wonderful. It was like flying, but better. Better than all those times he had gone down that hill all on his own in the rusty red wagon. He pushed her more and more, doing those loops, going down, making those jumps he had seen all his life. He turned down onto the race road, and went faster and faster, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he felt truly alive. There was something about it, about how the engine hummed and g-force pushed, it was all just… perfect.

And then he made it back to home. And he put Stronghorn in park. He gave her a loving pat, and smiled. This was all he had ever wanted in his life, and it was even greater than he had ever dreamed… but it eventually had to end, of course. He wiped his eye, not because there were tears of course, he was too amazing for tears, just because he felt like he should rub his eyes at that moment. He stopped the engine, and got out.

Outside, Mike was positively beaming at him, his eyes alight with his own memories and pure joy, and Texas gripped him in a hug.

"That was totally the coolest that Texas has ever experienced!" Mike gave a small laugh.

"Man, you're a natural. You really picked that up fast."

"Of course I did, I am the greatest, ka chaw!" He made a small karate motion, to help make his point. "…so," He held up the key. "…whose turn is it to drive it now?" Mike gave him a sideways look.

"What do you mean? It's yours."

At that point, Texas just blacked out.

Texas took to the Burners quickly, fitting in flawlessly and contentedly. They became his family, more than anyone else had in his entire life. He wanted to protect them, because they had already done for him the most they could possibly do. He took up their symbol and wore it with pride. His family grew, and that made it even better. They were heroes, protectors, and it was perfect.

It was perfect.

oOo

Jacob left Julie alone to her own thoughts, and she couldn't help but to tilt her head at Texas, picturing a small boy, who was just a little too lonely and – yes – she could see it. But she could also see that family member she had grown to know and to love, and she gave a small nod, understanding just a little more about those she held so dear to her.

Her family.


End file.
